It needs to be light & fast in a straight and slight down wind course and also fast on the plane again after the jibe in minimal wind.
Control in light conditions is of less importance, especially for the heavyweights.

Lightweights won't have much use of it. They are ok with the existing board width limit and can even go smaller.

Always keep in mind that the PWA follows the 63 rules, what means that every rider is allowed to register 6 sail sizes and three board sizes at the first event of the season.

With the chosen equipment you have to cover almost all conditions. If you register a too large light wind board it can limit you light wind performance in a bit "stronger lightwind".

Imagine, there is an event with 6 eliminations. One is really light at the limit with 6-10 knots and all other races take place in solid 11 - 17 knots. A 90 cm wide tanker would probably limit the performance. Most of the medium sized boards are 66 to 72 cm wide. Perhaps the big riders would need to risk to register a bigger sized medium board like the iSonic 110 and go for a bigger gap to the smallest one. If you want to be competitive in high wind conditions at Fuerte you at least need the 90 or 87.

Chris

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There were discussions about bringing Formula back on tour, but as you mentioned mcross 19, Formula has its own series. Formula Windsurfing is a great word. Sounds like Formula 1 in windsurfing. Perhaps it needs a comeback in the most professional windsurfing circuit. Not sure. At the moment Formula looks to me like an amateur class. And a few pros compete, too and win the money, what's fair enough.

Formula had its chance on tour already, before Slalom returned back in 2005. Since then the PWA ran 51 Slalomevents. Two of them were in collaboration with the IFCA. Just two events saw no result. 2008 in Jinha Beach, Ulsan, South Korea, where the PWA already ran 12 person heats. The wind was extremely up and down this year from 20 to 5 knots. But we had a fun race there, for money.

2011 at Westerland, Sylt we as well saw now result. Some heat s got done, but the first elimination never got completed.

Out of my view just a few spots are well suited for Formula racing like Sylt or Costa Brava. Alacati is quite shallow at some spots for instance, etc. If Formula should be back it could be an extra discipline, which will be run at new event locations, replaces Slalom events, where the wind is fairly light in average or will be held as a parallel discipline, like at Sylt, where it's often just too light for Slalom.

The PWA could raise the wind limit for Slalom, reduce the amount of gear in total. The real racing freaks have the change to show their skills in both disciplines. Slalom would look more radical again. Formula works well in light wind, when the wind blows consistent all over the course and when the companies produce gear for the real light wind.

At the moment not all big brands are producing Formula equipment.

Concerning the small board choice: we at least need one medium to small kind of board, when it gets strong at Costa Brava, Sylt, Alacati or for Fuerteventura. Sure, there is no Pozo, Karpathos or Tenrife on the tour calendar at the moment and the bigger sized gear gets used much more during the season (7.8 - 9.5 or 10.0 plus big and medium sized board).

Just a few facts and thoughts,

Chris

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Yes, Formula is very nice and has its own class so let's focus on Slalom.
If a Fomula board could be used in a Slalom race, is another discussion. Personally I think it could, but it would need a few modifications. Probably the heavyweights are better of with a dedicated slalom board wider than 85cm. Because of the 3/6 rule they would have to use the board not only in the super light but also in the normal light conditions, just like Chris already mentioned.
The REAL discussion is wether you still like to do Slalom races in winds below 12 knots.
In the Netherlands we also have a forum thread about this going, since Turkmenistan.
I notice that the opinions are devided. Some say that it is ridiculous and unfair, especially for the heavyweights. Others, like myself, think that it's better to have a super light slalom race than no race at all. Remember that some of the PWA riders have to travel thousands of miles around the planet to get to a PWA Slalom event and they often do want to race if there is only the slightest chance.
Concerning the fact that heavyweights have a disadvantage in the super light conditions, nobody ever mentions that the lightweights have the disadvantage in the strong conditions. When is the last time that a rider of less then 80kg has won the Slalom tour ?
Organizing a PWA slalom event is really a pain, because you need a lot of wind and wind is unpredictable. I also think that spots like e.g. Karpathos, Maui, Pozo, Leucate, Cabo Verde (in january & february), South Africa, etc.. are really missing in the PWA Slalom tour. Those spots are really known to have very good statistics for excellent slalom conditions in the right season. At the moment there too many spots that do not have the right qualifications for organizing a spectacular slalom event.
In the end, everyone prefers a blasting slalom event in strong winds, not ? Even the lightweights wil agree with this.

actually, FW used in open class at local/national races on slalom course all the time and in
light winds it could be deadly, people use a bit smaller fins, since don't need to go upwind, around 60cm, could be even smaller with 10/11/m2 sail

I often used smaller sail sizes like 8,8, 9,2 and 10,0, max a 11,0 and went the same directions how I was used to do it on my Slalom gear. My Formula board was a perfect trainings tool for light wind. All my friends, who were doing Formula for many years, told me I need to go extremely much upwind and afterwards extremely much downwind. I most of the time were more in between and really enjoyed that. So, why not Slalom racing on a kind of bigger board than 85cm width.

Not sure how competitive a Formula Board would be compared to a large Slalom board. The board could be really slim to make it lighter compared to a Formula board. Instead of 160 -170 liters just 140 to 150 liters. Would be really interesting to test. I remember the year, when we had no result on Korea. Paolo dos Reis had a massive fin in his iSonic 133, with 57 cm and was going extremely early and had massive speed at the start. The races just got cancelled as most of the guys stopped around mark one.

Chris

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If I remember correctly the Ultrasonic is quicker across the wind than a formula board for a given sail size and rather than Starboard having to design a totally new board why not just use the Ultrasonic? Trust me I can get 25 knots out of it on a 12 knots day!

57, wow thats big, I used the standard 52 on the 133 from 2008 and found that way too much.